Uganda Investment Authority’s Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Technical Skills Training programs are aimed at building the capacities of MSMEs to acquire the basic skills to produce improved and high quality products that attract higher monetary values.

This improves house hold incomes and promotes industrialization.

In the first week of March 2016, UIA undertook to facilitate a five days charcoal briquette making skills training in Kamengo Sub County in Mpigi where the majority of participants were users of charcoal for cooking.

The training exposed MSMEs and school teachers in the area to hands-on skills in producing charcoal briquettes from materials they would not ordinarily think useful, because they are all around them like: banana wastes, dry leaves, grass, charcoal dust, and dry leaves from fruit trees, among other agricultural wastes.

Mr. Stephen Byaruhanga, the UIA project Manager for the skilling project, urged the forty five (45) participants who benefited from this training to work form an association that could work together to use the acquired skills commercially.

There is more economic gain in numbers and the charcoal briquettes could be produced for both home and business use. Apart from being financially viable (additional income and availability of market), the briquette making initiative would mitigate a number of climate change problems caused by the degradation of forests for charcoal burning.

The SME Division continues to seek for partnerships to deliver skills that not only enhance the SME sector but contribute to the conservation of the environment.